As the story goes, not long after the late Ben Haden came to Chattanooga in 1968 to pastor First Presbyterian Church, he dropped by Manker Patten Tennis Center armed with a suspect backhand and a checkbook in hopes he could convince club pro Tommy Bartlett to improve his struggling game.
After watching Haden swat a few into the net, Bartlett reportedly returned the check and wryly observed, "You have such a unique game, I don't want to mess with it."
It might have been the only time in a Hall of Fame coaching and playing career that covered both basketball and tennis that Bartlett failed to hugely improve the athletic skills of those who played beside him or were under his watch.
Or as Essie, his bride of 64 years, said following the 88-year-old Bartlett's death last week: "If it was a round ball and bounced, Tommy was in."
They came by the hundreds to First Baptist Church on Monday to celebrate the late coach and athlete's remarkable life.
Where to begin and end was the tough part. There was the prep playing career that included four consecutive Knoxville City Championships in tennis despite coming from a single-parent, working-class home. He also won Knoxville city titles in table tennis and swimming.
Then, after serving in the U.S. Marines from 1946 through 1948, he returned to Knoxville to play basketball at the University of Tennessee, where he earned All-Southeastern Conference honors and was team captain. He also captained the UT tennis team, never losing a singles match, as well as starring on the swim team.
Long after that, especially after he reached his 45th birthday, came an adult tennis career that included 31 national championships in various age groups, many won with longtime doubles partner Darrell McDonald.
"And because I was 10 years younger, Tommy always had to play down," McDonald said. "But no matter how much he won, Tommy got along with everybody. He was such a great guy."
He was also a great coach in both basketball and tennis. His lifetime basketball coaching record was 468-151, including collegiate stops at Carson-Newman, Chattanooga and Florida, where he went 6-6 against Kentucky coaching legend Adolph Rupp.
There was his astounding success as the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga tennis coach, which included NCAA Division II women's national championships in 1983, 1984 and 1985.
"When we won the Division II title in 1983, Tommy had already designed the championship ring on a napkin," said Sue Bartlett, his daughter-in-law of 35 years who played for him at UTC for two seasons before graduating and becoming an assistant coach on those national title squads. "He had that much confidence in his players."
In attempting to explain her father-in-law's coaching genius, Bartlett said, "Tommy was a man of few words. Before a match, his last instructions would usually be: 'Whatever you do, win the last point.'"
Of his trademark, surgically precise drop shot, the one he relied on to capture more than 100 state and regional crowns, Sue said his motto was: "Do unto others before they do unto you."
She soon added, "He'd hit that drop shot and a half-smile would cross his face. He knew he'd won that point."
Yet before anyone thinks this was cockiness bordering on arrogance, McDonald recalled the time a player from North Carolina not only was determined to knock off Bartlett in a national age-group final but told anyone willing to listen, "I'm going to kick his (butt)."
Instead, according to McDonald, "Tommy beat him 1 and 1 (6-1, 6-1) without ever saying a word. It about killed the guy."
Not that Bartlett didn't understand the power of words to both lift and lighten one's spirits.
When son Billy married Sue, a native of Great Britain, Bartlett noted, "I got Billy out of the house and Sue can stay in the country."
Said Billy, recalling a particular Christmas: "He told us all that he loved us, and he'd never done that before. We knew it, but he wanted to make sure we heard it."
He loved Essie most of all and she loved him the same way, the two of them the picture most perfect of love, respect and devotion and friendship.
When McCallie tennis director Eric Voges was starring at Tennessee, he remembers playing matches at Florida.
"People were always coming up to me asking about Essie and Tommy," he said. "They'd always say, 'Tell Tommy and Essie we said hello.' It was always the same around Knoxville. And it always included Essie, too. Pretty remarkable."
You want remarkable? When Bartlett was named Florida's head basketball coach in 1967, he made $13,000 a year. In today's ESPN-driven, one-big-win-adds-two-digits-to-your-salary world, those six wins over Kentucky alone would have made him the hottest name in coaching.
Yet he never looked at what might have been with disappointment or regret. Instead, in the middle of 11 halls of fame he eventually would enter, he told Eddie Baker of the Chattanooga News-Free Press in 1987: "I'm a lucky, lucky man. You just have to be at the right place at the right time, and I have done that."
As he delivered Bartlett's euology with warmth and wisdom, Lea Clower said of close friend, "This getting old is not for sissies. Tommy did it graciously and kindly."
And as those hundreds sitting in First Baptist early Monday afternoon surely would agree, Bartlett won the last point and the most important point to reach a far better place. Probably after a deft drop shot followed by a half-smile.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com